York County lawmaker files bill to ban Confederate flag from any SC public building
YORK -- In response to an ongoing controversy over a version of the Confederate flag being put back into the renovated York County Courthouse, York County lawmaker John King has filed a bill that would settle the issue - a ban on the Confederate flag being flown or shown in any public building in South Carolina except a museum.
King, D-Rock Hill, chairman of the Legislature’s Black Caucus, is the sole sponsor of the bill and has spoken out repeatedly against the flag as a divisive relic. King said he expected the 2015 General Assembly vote to remove the flag from the State House after a white supremacist killed nine blacks in Charleston in hopes of starting a race war would have ended attempts to put a Confederate flag up on any public grounds. King was one of many leaders who spoke out Jan. 29 against the Confederate flag going back into the courtroom when the courthouse in York re-opened, pushing him to file the bill.
“I believed that issue of the Confederate flag was behind us after the state took action in 2015 - but apparently it isn’t’,” King said. “This would handle it once and for all.”
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said he is opposed to the bill and the calendar for contested issues is full, meaning the bill likely won’t be heard this year.
Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/news/politics-government/article133628609.html